How to Express a Feeling

 By the time we reach adulthood, we have heard a lot of "don't" messages from our culture. This begins with our primary caregivers but quickly fans out to include other adults in our lives...and other kids who have already become agents of the culture. These are powerful shaping experiences. One of the many results is that as adults trying to actively be in a love relationship, we have lost or hidden away the capacity to express a feeling in a straightforward manner.
In our work, we frequently hear people go down the wrong road by using this phrase: "I felt that..."
What usually follows is the word "you" and a criticism or indictment of their partner. In other words,
criticism comes through masquerading as a feeling. "I felt that you disappointed me" is not a feeling.
"I feel that you are never really going to understand me" not a feeling. "I feel that you'll never do the things I need you to do so I can feel respected" not a feeling. All of these are criticisms. When you point your finger at your partner, they put their fingers in their ears.
So how do we express a feeling? Ask yourself how young children do it. They say, "I feel really hurt," "I feel sad," "I'm mad," "I'm really scared," "I feel bad," "I'm so happy!" They just say the feeling. There is no "that".
They say the feeling and feel the feeling at the same time. As adults, if we really want our partners to hear us and be empathetic and possibly change some aspect of how they interact with us, we have to unlearn the Language of Hurt which is "you, you, you," shame, blame, criticize in a variety of disguises...and sometimes undisguised contempt! We have to relearn our natural language, the Language of the Heart, the Language of Healing by owning what lives in us and is so painful. It is painful for a lot of men to say, "I'm so sad, I could cry for a week," or "I'm really afraid...I'm afraid I'm going to be alone." It's very painful for a lot of women to say, "I'm angry. I'm just so angry!" We could go down the gender difference trail further but for our purposes here, not necessary. Because, frankly, it is painful for most adult human beings to just say their deepest feeling out loud at any moment, unless they are happy...but a lot of people even have trouble saying that, as if there is an inner voice telling them it's not good to be too happy, an unwelcome residue of our Puritan founders.
Some people joke and tease about the phrase "inner child" or the phrase "how does that make you feel?"
The truth is, we make fun of them because they make us feel uncomfortable...because nearly every last one of us is carrying around an emotional heritage that includes some very painful memories. Yet, until we get fully real with ourselves and our partners, until we claim our right to express our hurt, to tell the story of what we experienced as vulnerable children, we can not experience true intimacy as adults. It is a great and sad irony that vulnerability set us up for hurt as children...but without vulnerability as adults, we cannot be intimate. We must risk telling our story in its true form, or face the greater risk of living a life under cover.
C 2011 Bob Kamm